The ‘second wave’ of the pandemic is here
The TLDR: Cases are spiralling in Europe and the United States, and there are worrying signs of an upward trend in key states in India as well. A Covid winter is coming. We don’t know, however, how severe it will be.
First, the numbers
The world: On Wednesday, the global tally of cases jumped up by more than 500,000—a record-setting one-day increase since the beginning of the pandemic. The number of daily cases added has increased by 25% in less than two weeks. The total right now: 45.3 million. As of now, Europe, North America and Latin America account for over 66% of the cases and over 76% of deaths.
Europe: has 9.5 million cases and around 261,000 deaths. The worst hit: France which reported 50,000 new cases for the first time on Sunday. Announcing a nationwide lockdown—which will start today—Prime Minister Macron said:
“The virus is circulating at a speed that not even the most pessimistic forecasts had anticipated. Like all our neighbours, we are submerged by the sudden acceleration of the virus. We are all in the same position: overrun by a second wave which we know will be harder, more deadly than the first.”
Also going into partial lockdown: Germany which is poised to hit 20,000 cases a day by the end of this week. And its numbers are doubling every seven days.
Nation to note: Random testing in the UK revealed that it may be adding 100,000 new cases each day (official total is 25,000). Translation: Around 1% of the country’s entire population becomes infected every 10 days.
The US: reported 87,164 new cases on Thursday—setting a new record. Total number of cases: nine million-plus. Experts say its daily totals will cross 100,000 very soon. In the past week, In the past week alone, it has added a staggering half a million new cases, and more than 20 states have reported record daily levels.
Latin America: is adding 100,000 new infections each day. Five of the top ten countries in terms of total number of cases are in this region.
India: As of Thursday, there are 603,687 active cases, a 15% drop from last week. Our overall number of daily cases currently stands at 49,881—which is up from our last week low of 36,000. The total number of infections to date is eight million. But some states are showing signs of trouble. Kerala is already in the middle of a second wave. West Bengal reported a jump of 23% in the last four weeks. The Delhi Health Minister is talking of a “third wave” thanks to an 8% surge. According to him, the city already experienced a ‘second wave’ at the end of August.
And that brings us to the key question...
Is this a wave or another peak?
There’s no scientific definition as to what constitutes a wave in terms of a disease. The WHO executive director Mike Ryan, however, defines it so: ”There’s a period of time in which there’s very low or no activity, and then the disease returns in a large way.” So the great flu pandemic of 1918 had three distinct waves and looked like this in the UK:
But a single wave will often have “a natural pattern of peaks and valleys” (i.e. go up and down a bit). As Ryan explains:
“When they’ve come off the peak of the first wave, but they haven’t reduced the disease down and they’re in a steady state where they’re struggling to reduce the incidence of the disease, and then they get a second peak.”
By this definition, Europe may indeed be experiencing a second wave. In France, for example, the number of daily cases went as low as 100. But India—which passed its first peak in mid-September—may be gearing up for a second peak. Back in June, a leading epidemiologist noted:
“Once it goes to a rock bottom and then comes up, we call that a second wave. I don't see that happening in India because we may have a prolonged plateau, rather than dipping to the bottom and emerging as a second wave. It will take some time.”
So what will happen in India?
According to a mathematical model developed by IIT, our caseload will hit 14.57 million, as we will be adding around 81,000 cases each day. But it is likely that some states will be more hard hit than others—exactly as it is now. More importantly, we may lose the ability to effectively track the actual number of cases. As one expert notes:
“The average covid-19 numbers mask the differences between states. We may be missing cases. As the epidemic makes inroads into smaller cities and towns on the way to rural areas, getting the correct epidemiological picture will be challenging.”
Poorer testing and healthcare facilities in these areas will also make it harder to contain and treat this second peak.
The bottomline: It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why so many countries are experiencing a second wave or peak after coming out of lockdown. Most people—especially the young—are out and about. In fact, the moment Macron announced the lockdown in France, people crowded into bars to make the most of the precious remaining days of freedom.
Well, there won’t be any fresh lockdown in India given the already dire state of the economy—not unless we abandon all common sense and push our still-large numbers sky high. Winter is coming. Now is the time to hibernate. Then again, so is Diwali and shaadi season and, of course, pollution.
Reading list
- Mint has the IIT projections for India.
- CNN explains what went wrong in Europe.
- Fox News points to a Financial Times exclusive (paywall) that suggests a virus mutation may be responsible for resurgence in Europe.
- Al Jazeera has the conventional wisdom on its misfortunes: They opened up too soon.
- Vox offers an overview of angry anti-lockdown protests around the world.
- The Conversation explains what a pandemic wave looks like.
- CNN also explains what we can learn from the great flu pandemic.
- StatNews looks at the latest vaccine trials and argues that it is time to reset our expectations.